5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest by Awareness www.visionesdelturismo.com

1. Beyond the Big 3
Beyond the Big
3:
55Killer Strategies to Dominate
Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
LinkedIn and Pinterest
JUNE 2012
LEAD GEN
SOCIAL REACH INFLUENCERS
KILLER
STRATEGIES
FOLLOW UP
ENGAGEMENT METRICS
1

2. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Introduction 3
Strategy One: Increase Social Reach 4
Strategy Two: Increase Content Engagement 7
Strategy Three: Identify and Engage Influencers 10
Strategy Four: Increase Lead Generation 12
Strategy Five: Apply Analytics to Know What Works 15
Conclusion 16
Additional Resources 16
About Awareness Inc. 17
2

3. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
INTRODUCTION
LinkedIn and Pinterest have joined the top social media ranks, In Beyond the Big 3: Five
alongside Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (the Big 3), as
effective marketing tools offering brands creative opportunities Killer Strategies to Dominate
to connect with customers and prospects. We’ve previously LinkedIn and Pinterest, we
covered 5 strategies for success on the Big 3. We can also
apply these same strategies to LinkedIn and Pinterest. will cover how to use these
platforms to:
LinkedIn boasts 147 million users and Pinterest recently hit
10 million unique active users, as reported in January 2012.
Brands that effectively use LinkedIn and Pinterest have Increase social reach on
experienced higher referral traffic, better quality leads, and
1 each platform
ultimately, increased sales. How does a brand effectively use
these networks for business traction? In this paper, we share Boost fan engagement
killer strategies that brands can use to increase their social 2
presence, create quality engagement through content, and with quality content
measure their marketing successes on LinkedIn and Pinterest.
3 Engage influencers, both
We’ll bring each strategy to life using real-world examples of internal and external to a
brands successfully executing each. Specific tips and important brand
tactics for each strategy will be shared to shape your company’s
success with these platforms.
4 Increase lead generation
5 Analyze efforts and
TEN
adapt your social
marketing approaches
based on meaningful
MILLION
insights gained from
social media analytics
ACTIVE
USERS IN
LESS THAN
ONE YEAR!
147
MILLION
USERS
3

4. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy One: Increase Social Reach
As explained in Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube,
social reach is all about expanding how many customers your brand can tap into across social platforms.
Increase social reach by finding your ideal prospective targets and making an impact through connections and
interactions with them. Pinterest and LinkedIn hold untapped potential customers that are just waiting for your
brand to reach out.
Universal Tips for Growing Social Reach:
1 Complete your profiles & update them regularly
2 Use target keywords (developed in SEO) in your profiles and posts
3 Promote your profiles via non-social channels, such as your websites, emails, and
press releases
4 Add sharing buttons and cross-promote your profiles - Encourage people to share
your content
5 Grow your network and make friends in your industry – Identify influencers and
promote their content when applicable
6 Be human! When people reach out to you, interact with them
Increasing Social Reach on Pinterest
On Pinterest, users can choose to follow other’s specific, relevant, and compelling pinboards, or they can follow
your main profile to see all of your updates. Your brand’s goal on Pinterest is to recruit customers and prospects
to follow your brand’s profile, rather than specific pinboards.
A small retail company, the Daily Grommet, built a following and called on customers
to create pins and repin items from their website that were on the users’ wish lists.
To keep track of the campaign, the brand encouraged users to include the phrase
“I’ve pinned it to win it from @DailyGrommet.” The phrase was shown to customers’
followers, showed where the pinned items originated, and encouraged the new
Pinterest users to check out the Daily Grommet’s Pinterest profile.
4

5. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy One: Increase Social Reach
Increasing Social Reach on Pinterest [cont.]
Tips to Grow Social Reach on Pinterest:
1 Create pinboards and populate the boards with your own pins and by repinning from other users.
• Create topic-specific boards that resonate with your target audience to encourage following of
your brand’s profile. Focus board topics on the lifestyle, history, causes, and interests related
to your customers.
• When creating boards, use keywords developed for SEO to refine your boards and integrate
your Pinterest brand profile with your marketing initiatives.
2 Publicize your Pinterest account on all other social platforms.
3 Embed Pinterest buttons or widgets on your company website.
4 Register your profile in Pinterest directories to grow your followership:
• WePin.org is a directory based on specific interests.
• Repinly lists stats about Pinterest users and the most popular pinners / boards based on topic.
5 Consider connecting your Pinterest account with your brand’s Twitter profile to effectively use
hashtags.
Note: Carefully consider connecting with Facebook - the hashtags on Pinterest are only appropriate for
Twitter and may clutter your Facebook timeline.
6 Once you’ve built a following, encourage users to create their own pins and repin items from
your boards and your website. This will ensure that your boards are shared with your followers’
followers, increasing your brand reach on the platform.
7 Post consistently to retain and grow your social reach.
5

6. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy One: Increase Social Reach
Increasing Social Reach on LinkedIn TIMELINE
Growing your social reach on LinkedIn requires a company group effort using a combination of your company
page, groups, and individual employee profiles. A successful corporate LinkedIn presence uses all three, with
groups and the company page carrying most of the weight.
Tips to Grow Social Reach on LinkedIn:
1 Embed the “Follow Company” and “Recommend Company” buttons for your LinkedIn company
page on your brand’s homepage.
2 Encourage your employees to promote the company page and groups within their individual
profiles. Employees should create quality introductions for your brand in order to find prospects and
help build a following on your page.
3 Start a LinkedIn group, if appropriate, focused on your target audience. Cultivate stimulating
discussions with group members, enticing them to follow your company page. Position your
company as an expert in your industry through holding group question-and-answer sessions.
Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank on boomers, work and social purpose, started a LinkedIn group,
“Encore Careers,” that gives 50+ year-old adults a place to discuss issues of concern to them in a safe
and spam-free environment. In a recent Mashable article, Dave Kerpen, the CEO of Likeable Media, said
the small non-profit has managed to attract over 1,500 people to the group in a short period of time.
6

7. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Two: Increase Content Engagement
As with any social channel, content reigns as one of the most critical components of a successful social
marketing strategy. Content for Pinterest and LinkedIn comes in different shapes and forms. Content for
Pinterest is recommended to “avoid self-promotion” (see Pinterest’s terms and conditions), while content on
LinkedIn focuses heavily on company and product updates. Both social channels convey a sense of company
culture to customers and prospects.
Engaging Fans on Pinterest Pinterest Tools
Pinterest Content Tips
Showcase your best visual assets –
1 photos, white paper covers, product
packaging, products in actions, etc.
2 Use hashtags in your pin descriptions
to effectively integrate the posts with
Twitter. Create a dedicated hashtag
for fan-generated pin contests and
encourage users to actively participate in
your brand’s boards by creating a public Visual content tools such as photo editing
pinboard. applications, screen grabbing tools, and
visual quote tools can push your pins from
3 Involve your customers in board-making boring and elementary to visually stunning.
to encourage ownership of your brand. Here are some tools to help you create
and manage pins:
Interact with other users by commenting
4 on pins, following their profiles and Instagram: Easily edit and transform
pinboards, and repinning content related photos taken on your mobile device.
to your brand or a specific product.
Similar to other social platforms, you must Pinstamatic: Pin an entire website, sticky
promote other users in order to grow a notes, Spotify tracks, and calendar dates.
quality following of your own.
Snapito: Screengrabs for creating content.
Avoid self-promotion overload by adding
5 pins that showcase your brand’s lifestyle, Share As Image: Transform text to a
company culture, history, and personality. visual quote to use as a pin.
Show employees, the company
headquarters, manufacturing, and Url2Pin.it: Pin an entire website
development of products. screenshot.
Aim to become the top pinboard on one
6 or a few topics, encouraging users to
Pinerly: A dashboard for scheduling pins,
getting stats, and engaging with other
promote your specialized, compelling users.
pins.
7

8. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Two: Engage Fans Through Effective Content
Engaging Fans on Pinterest [cont.] Infographics do
If you’re in need of content ideas, show executive headshots, images from extremely well
blog articles, simple data charts from Excel, eBook covers, and customer on Pinterest
photos. Infographics do extremely well on Pinterest; post them often to
help your board become popular for a category.
Create pins with videos produced by your brand. On Pinterest, videos
are a separate category on the homepage, so use them as another way
to increase your following and grow your social reach. For example, post
videos of company speakers at czonerences and events. Be sure to
include a clear call-to-action in your brand’s videos.
Whole Foods stands out as a brand with compelling Pinterest content.
The brand has used its pinboards to become a thought leader for recipes,
reused and recycled items, and green living. The brand understands their
customers’ passions, and they amp that up to catch their attention. Their
board ‘Whole Planet Foundation’ showcases the international work of the
brand’s foundation and some of the products associated with this cause.1
8

9. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Two: Engage Fans Through Effective Content
Engaging Fans on LinkedIn
Updates from your groups and
LinkedIn Content Tips company page should combine
blog posts, company and industry
updates, testimonials, press
1 On the overview page, use a video and different
appropriate profile modules to showcase your company.
coverage, and content from other
companies. Showcase stats and
data, and be sure to use images
2 Use the credibility builder. show all press mentions -
another
“news module” to and videos in status updates.
A great aspect of LinkedIn is
the ability to target your status
Integrate your RSS feed and Twitter stream on the updates based on your audience.
3 overview page to easily populate and update your profile. Targeted status updates allow
(If your Twitter profile is not connected to your overview company page administrators to
page, send a post to LinkedIn by including the hashtag #in only send posts only to a specific
audience that they wish to target
when tweeting.) and can be narrowed by company
size, industry, job function,
4 If appropriate for to thebrand, addpage, too.
and stock prices
your
overview
the headquarter location seniority, geography, and internal
employees. Refine your audience
to make your posts relevant to
specific users.
For example, LinkedIn’s very own overview page includes modules for affiliations, company information,
location, news, stock prices, and blog posts.
9

10. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Three: Identify and Engage Influencers
Compared to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, there are fewer available tools that help brands identify
influencers on Pinterest and LinkedIn (for tips on how to identify and engage influencers on Twitter, Facebook,
and YouTube, download Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube). However, many of the same principles apply for influencer engagement, such as the importance of
relationship building and creating compelling outreach and campaigns built specifically for them.
Finding and Engaging Pinfluencers
To identify influencers on Pinterest, browse relevant topics for top pinners with the most followers and
engagement. Use tools, such as PinReach and PinPuff, which rank users by their impact and engagement.
These tools also measure the reach and virality of individual pins and pinners. PinPuff assigns a “pinfluence”
score for pinners and assesses the monetary value of their pins.
Once you have identified your pinfluential users, study their boards for insights. A user’s pinboard and the
comments on it are a quick and easy way to get to know a person’s lifestyle, interests, and personality. Start and
develop a relationship with your top pinners, offering them custom packages based on their pinterests. Engage
influencers by creating a user-generated board shared only with them. This promotes their pins and boards, too,
as the shared pins will show up on both profiles.
Honda and Kotex ran excellent pinfluencer
campaigns. Honda held a “Pintermission” where
the company gave top pinners the items that they
pinned.
Kotex combed thousands of pinboards in search
of the top 50 women on Pinterest, based on
the number of engaged followers and the most
popular pins. Kotex studied the boards to get
to know the women and their interests. Then,
they created and sent custom gift boxes to each
woman based on her preferences.
Consider the importance of
relationship building and create
compelling outreach and campaigns
built specifically for them.
10

11. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Three: Identify and Engage Influencers
Finding and Engaging LinkedIn Influencers
To identify influencers on
LinkedIn, run targeted
searches based on
industry, position, and
company. Pinpoint
which types of users
are most important to
connect with by using the
demographic targeting
features embedded in
LinkedIn, allowing you to
build a highly customized
influencer list for your
brand. Scour groups to
identify influencers who are
vocal in group discussions.
Engage with influencers
by creating an invite-
only group and holding
expert discussions around
industry news, issues, and
trends.
The most effective way to find influencers on LinkedIn is by using the new Skills and Expertise section. For example,
if you are looking to connect with the top social media experts, you can run a targeted search on the platform.
Depending on your audience, LinkedIn can be the perfect location for an influencer campaign. For example,
American Express (AmEx) wanted to promote their new Membership Rewards® for their flagship corporate
card to a difficult-to-reach audience: CFOs and C-suite leaders of small and mid-sized businesses. In this
campaign, AmEx combined display ads, Home Page Takeovers, and cost per lead campaigns all focused
around a white paper download. Using LinkedIn influencer targeting and lead generation methods, AmEx was
able to reach this audience through an award-winning campaign.
11

12. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Four: Increase Lead Generation
Effective lead generation is quite different on Pinterest and LinkedIn. Because of Pinterest’s reputation as
a referral traffic booster, your goal is to bring your Pinterest followers back to your website. With LinkedIn,
brands can instead keep their followers on the platform and direct them to their “Products and Services” tab
located on the company’s LinkedIn profile pages.
Lead Generation Tips for Pinterest
Increase follower interest in your
products on Pinterest by creating
catalogs of pinboards and pins
based on product or thought
leadership collections. For retail
brands, add the prices to attract
quality leads to your website who
are interested in your product at
its specific price point. Be careful
not to only pin catalogs, though,
because users will start to tune
you out. Give your followers a
mix of lifestyle pins and catalog
or product pins. For technology
companies, use Pinterest to
showcase your educational
resources – here’s how we have
tackled that at Awareness:
12

13. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Four: Increase Lead Generation
Lead Generation Tips
for Pinterest [cont]:
Ideeli, a retail daily deal site, mixes product
images from their site with softer lifestyle
images from their blog to drive traffic and
increase sales. As reported by our friends at
Mindjumpers, the site’s web traffic increased
by 446% and sales increased five-fold.
Always include links back to your site for the
image location in the pin description to drive
more traffic from the pins you create. If there
isn’t a specific page for the image location,
choose the product page or location on your
site that is most relevant to the pin. Add the
Pin-it button to your homepage and each
product page on your site to make it easy for
users to engage with your brand.
Lead Generation Tips for LinkedIn
According to a marketing study conducted by HubSpot, LinkedIn is viewed as the most effective social media
channel for lead generation, ranking 277% more effective than other platforms. Marketers cited the user-
friendly “Products and Services” tab and customer-generated recommendations on company pages as key
reasons for its effectiveness.
Marketers consider
LinkedIn
Customize your products tab to list your top products
1 and services, showcasing your best or featured
products in the “Product and Service Spotlight.” The
277%
“Spotlight” section of the company page features three
scrolling banner images.
Encourage key customers and influencers to give
2 feedback through brand and product recommendations.
3 Embed the “Recommend on LinkedIn” widget on your
brand’s homepage to encourage users to both follow
your company page and recommend your brand.
more effective
Encourage recommendations for your brand and for in generating leads
specific products. Recommendations build third-party
credibility, helping to move your prospective buyers
down the sales funnel.
than other platforms!
4 Integrate a “shop now” feature on your company page
to make it easy for customers to click through product
listings right to your site.
13

14. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Four: Increase Lead Generation
Consider LinkedIn ads for sending targeted prospects For an example of a great products tab, check
to your site or to your Facebook page for cross-platform out Dell’s company page. Dell currently lists
promotion. over 40 products with over 300 customer
recommendations. The “Product and Service
Spotlight” has compelling graphics and a mix
of the Dell’s leading products and services.
When a user drills down into a specific
LinkedIn Ad Creation Best Practices product, it’s easy to find the “visit our website”
link to learn more or make a purchase.
1 Create effective ads with a
clear, attractive message
2 Include images and a
strong call-to-action
3 Refresh your ads at least
once a month to keep your
click-through rates high
4 Create multiple ads for
your campaigns to test
most effective copy and
images
5 Target your ads based on
geography, industry, job
function, job title, and/or
within the LinkedIn groups
7
6 Set an appropriate daily
budget and adjust your
bids daily or weekly
More tips can be found
here: Best Practices for
Advertising on LinkedIn
14

15. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Strategy Five: Tie Social Activity to Web Analytics
Study Google Analytics referral traffic, conversions, and visitor demographics to understand your customers and
learn what makes them returning visitors.
Pinterest Analytics Tips
While Pinterest analytics are still in development, there are some tools to test and tactics to track referral traffic
and leads. Measure overall profile metrics and those of individual pins for the most insights.
Analytics Tools
Repinly: A directory that provides
1 statistics and insights about pins and
profiles. Also used for industry tracking,
competitive analysis, and identifying
influencers, as it helps find the top pinners
and boards.
Pintics: Manage and optimize traffic
2 generated from pins, boards, and your
overall account. It shows traffic generated,
sales, and activity for pins by integrating
data with Google Analytics.
Curalate: Measure, monitor, and grow
3 the social presence of your brand on
Pinterest. The tool finds all conversations
about your brand and shows them in one
place.
PinReach & PinPuff: Best used for
4 influencer identification. Also used
to monitor your own influence and
engagement levels.
LinkedIn Analytics Tips
Built-in LinkedIn analytics include impressions and engagement.
LinkedIn defines impressions as the number of times an update
The analytics tab on the has been viewed organically, and engagement as the percentage
company page shows of times that members clicked, liked, commented, or shared
the update organically. Both of these metrics can be viewed in
the industry, company, LinkedIn insights approximately 24 hours after posting.
and position of the
visitors to the LinkedIn Additionally, the analytics tab on the company page shows the
profile industry, company, and position of the visitors to the LinkedIn
profile. It also tracks visitors broken down by tabs, ads, and by
whether or not they reached out to the company’s employees.
15

16. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
Conclusion
With the continuous emergence of new social platforms and tools, it’s important to utilize those that fit your
brand and your target audience. For example, if your company is more focused on business-to-business, then
LinkedIn is probably among the top options. For business-to-consumer brands, Pinterest can be the ideal
engagement platform. Knowing which tools are appropriate for your brand will ultimately drive better results. To
learn more about the top three social networks for business, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, check out “Five
Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.”
Additional Resources
Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
Even with the increasing number of social networks, most experts still recognize that successful social
marketing revolves around the Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
How to Audit Your Social Marketing Efforts
Learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of your current social marketing strategy. Identify new ways to
improve the return on your social marketing investment.
Social Engagement: How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction
Engagement is the enduring effect of content to motivate an audience to do something; motivate your
audience with data proven best practices.
Social Commerce Lessons: The 6 Social Principles that Increase Sales
Learn more about content strategies and driving sales.
Actionable Social Analytics
A detailed guide on how to approach your social analytics process.
2102 Social Media and New Media Predictions
This free e-book is full of insights on Big Data and other trending topics in social media. Hear from 32
social media experts, including David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, and Erik Qualman.
The Social Funnel: Driving Business Value with Social Marketing
For a detailed discussion on how to effectively measure your social marketing initiatives, download our
free e-book.
The State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas For Social Marketing Investment and Biggest
Social Marketing Challenges in 2012
Learn how leaders allocate resources, discover the top social platforms and social media management
tools they use, social marketing investment priorities, and the practices com¬panies will adopt in 2012.
16

17. Beyond the Big 3
5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest
About Awareness
Awareness Inc. is the leading provider of enterprise-class, on-demand social marketing management software
(SMMS) for marketers to publish and manage social content, engage with their audience and measure the
effectiveness of their social media activities across multiple social media channels. The Awareness Social
Marketing Hub is built upon Awareness’ expertise with some of the world’s leading brands and marketing
agencies including MLB, Sony Pictures, Comcast, Likeable Media, Associated Press, Cox Communications,
Mindjumpers and American Cancer Society.
The Awareness Social Marketing Hub is built to address the challenges marketers face managing multiple
social channels. The Social Marketing Hub is the first enterprise-class application for serious marketers who
want to plan, implement and measure meaningful social media strategies across the organization.
Get Connected:
Follow us on Twitter
@awarenessinc
Join us on Facebook
• Social Media Marketing Best Practices
• Social Media Marketing Mavens Pages
Join our LinkedIn Group
Social Media Marketing Mavens Group
Check out our Blog
Follow us on Pinterest
17